Number of immigrants

Immigration to the United States has varied considerably during the past few decades. While immigration declined in the 1990s, it began to pick up in the 2000s. Immigration expanded rapidly prior to the recession, reaching nearly 1.3 million people in 2006, as the booming domestic economy attracted job seekers from other countries. However, as economic conditions soured shortly thereafter due to the recession, the number of immigrants per year dropped as the incentive to move to the United States declined. Unfavorable employment conditions continued in 2010 despite the economy returning to growth. However, the economy steadily improved in subsequent years and since 2014, immigration has increased. Notably, immigration grew a robust 12.6% in 2016, representing its fastest growth in a decade. Such growth, however, was largely unsustainable, resulting in immigration declining 4.8% in 2017 and 2.7% in 2018. In 2020, limitations of immigration policy as well as travel restrictions during COVID-19 led to a 31.4% decline in 2020 alone. Despite the new administration easing immigration policy expected to increase immigration in 2021 and 2022, restrictions related to the coronavirus as well as delayed release of visas by Congress has slowed down the expected return of immigrations. However, the distribution of the coronavirus vaccine enabled the reopening of the borders and increased the number of immigrants by 37.6% in 2022. As the Biden Administration, through USCIS, began to process the naturalization application backlogs that had accumulated over previous years, this led to a significant increase in the number of approved applications. However, this trend is expected to change in 2025. The Trump Administration's tougher stance on immigration matters is likely to result in stricter requirements for incoming applicants. Consequently, those applying for legal residency will face greater difficulty in having their applications approved, which is expected to substantially reduce the number of people granted these statuses in 2025.